1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a recording and/or reproducing apparatus arranged to process, record and/or reproduce images and sounds.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 8 shows in a block diagram a conventional digital electronic camera. Referring to FIG. 8, the digital electronic camera 800 is arranged to use a memory card 801 as a recording medium. The camera 800 includes a photo-taking lens 1, a diaphragm shutter 2 which is a shutter, but functions as a diaphragm as well, and a flash device 3. A CPU 4 is arranged to control mechanical and operation parts. A driving circuit 5 is arranged to drive each part of a mechanical system. An image sensor 6 is arranged to convert into an electrical signal a reflection light which comes from an object of shooting. A timing signal generating circuit (abbreviated to a TG circuit) 7 is arranged to generate a timing signal necessary for operating the image sensor 6. An image sensor driving circuit 8 is arranged to amplify the timing signal from the timing signal generating circuit 7 up to a level necessary for driving the image sensor 6. A preprocessing circuit 9 is provided with a CDS circuit for removing a noise from the output of the image sensor 6 and a nonlinear type amplifying circuit for amplifying the output of the image sensor 6 prior to an A/D (analog-to-digital) conversion process. Reference numeral 10 denotes an A/D converter and reference numeral 12 a buffer memory. A signal processing system control CPU 13 is arranged to control each part of a signal processing system. An operation display part 14 is arranged to make a display in aid of operation by showing the state of the camera. An operation part 15 is provided for externally-accessibly operating the camera. A memory controller 802 is arranged to control the buffer memory 12. A digital signal processing circuit 803 is arranged to make the output of the image sensor 6 into a form suited for recording on the memory card 801. A memory card interface (I/F) 804 is arranged to connect the digital electronic camera 800 to the memory card 801. The conventional digital electronic camera 800 operates as described below with reference to FIG. 8.
With the operation part 15 operated by a camera operator, the digital electronic camera 800 enters into a state of performing a shooting action. The photo-taking lens 1 is controlled by the mechanical and operation part control CPU 4 and the mechanical system driving circuit 5 in accordance with the intention of the operator. At this time, the conditions of shooting, etc., are displayed at the display part 14 to inform the operator of the state of the camera 800. The luminance of the object of shooting is measured by a light measuring circuit which is not shown. An aperture value and a shutter speed of the diaphragm shutter 2 are then derived from the mechanical and operation part control CPU 4. The mechanical system driving circuit 5 drives the diaphragm shutter 2 on the basis of the control values thus derived from the CPU 4. Depending on the output of the light measuring circuit, a shot may be taken by flashing the flash device 3. When an exposure is effected in this manner, a reflection light from the object of shooting comes to fall upon the image sensor 6 via the photo-taking lens 1 and the diaphragm shutter 2. The diaphragm shutter 2 then acts to limit the quantity of the incident light upon the image sensor 6. If the image sensor 6 is an interlaced reading type CCD, the diaphragm shutter 2 is arranged to prevent an electric charge signal from being affected by the incident light. The image sensor 6 is arranged to be operated by a driving signal which is outputted from the TG circuit 7 and is amplified by the image sensor driving circuit 8. The action of the TG circuit 7 is controlled by the signal processing system control CPU 13. The output of the image sensor 6 which is driven in this manner is supplied to the preprocessing circuit 9. Upon receipt of the output of the image sensor 6, the preprocessing circuit 9 performs a CDS (correlated double sampling) process to remove a low band noise from the output of the image sensor 6 (or a pickup image signal) and a process of making the pickup image signal into a nonlinear state for the effective use of the dynamic range of the A/D converter 10. The pickup image signal thus preprocessed is converted into a digital signal by the A/D converter 10. The digital signal thus obtained is inputted to the memory controller 802. Under the control of the signal processing system control CPU 13, the memory controller 802 at first temporarily stores the digitized pickup image signal in the buffer memory 12 and then reads out the stored digital signal in order as determined by the arrangement of color filters of the image sensor 6. The digital signal thus read out is converted into a signal of a predetermined format by the digital signal processing circuit 803. The signal thus processed is recorded on the memory card 801 through the memory card interface (I/F) 804.
The conventional digital electronic camera described above, however, has the following problems.
(i) The functions of the camera are limited to picking up and recording still images and permit neither taking any motion picture nor combining with sound data.
(ii) The camera has a limited data compressing method for efficient recording on the recording medium and does not permit adoption of any other method.
(iii) It is difficult to combine the camera with an image pickup device and a sound input/output device into a highly advanced information processing apparatus having effective functions including, for example, OCR (optical character recognition), voice recognition, voice synthesis, translation, image recognition, image synthesis, etc.
Any attempt to overcome these problems, on the other hand, would necessitate incorporation of all these processing functions into the apparatus. Such an attempt, therefore, increases not only the size of the apparatus but also its price and would become a great demerit of the apparatus for a person not requiring such functions.